[Ipe-discuss] UI-update

[Tim Hutt]

I agree with all this. Especially the undo dialog. No other programs have a
dialog to tell you the undo stack is empty.

But maybe you are attached to it, in which case a simple compromise could
be to add a "Don't show this again" checkbox.

The same for deleting layers, ie "All objects in this layer will be
deleted. Continue? (Yes) (No) [×] Don't show this warning again".

Cheers,

Tim
On Nov 28, 2011 5:48 PM, "Troels Sørensen" <trold at dcs.warwick.ac.uk> wrote:

> I realised that my replies only went to Otfried... so here we go again:
>
> 2011/11/27 Otfried Cheong <otfried at ipe.airpost.net>
>
>> On 11/27/2011 09:15 AM, Troels Sørensen wrote:
>>
>>> Reading actions.lua also made me figure out that it is indeed
>>> possible to delete a layer.  This is highly non-obvious, and actually
>>> the reason for me starting to write ipelets.  Is there any reason for
>>> not allowing deletion of non-empty layers (besides the undo-code not
>>> supporting it atm.)?  I often end up with extra layers that are not
>>> visible in any views, and it is annoying having to empty a layer to be
>>> able to delete it.  Similarly, the selected layer in some view seems
>>> like a strange block for deleting a layer.
>>>
>>
>> So what should be the desired behaviour?  Simply delete all the objects
>> in the layer that you are deleting?  Or move them to the active layer?
>>
>
> Layers is not a feature that is unique to ipe, and thus the behaviour
> should be the same as in the other programs using layers: deleting a layer
> also deletes all objects in the layer.  This is the behaviour in both
> Photoshop and Gimp.
>
> Every view needs to have an active layer, so what should Ipe do when you
>> delete a layer that's active somewhere?   I think it would be a rather
>> unpleasant surprise if Ipe simply switched the view to a different active
>> layer.
>>
>
> I don't think that the active layer should have any influence on what can
> be deleted.  Imagine your text-editor saying "You cannot delete this line;
> that's where your cursor is".  There are two situations to consider here:
> 1) The layer to be deleted is active in the current view: the user already
> has focus on the layer-frame, and can see what is going on.
> 2) The layer to be deleted is active in another view: the user has to
> change to that view for it to even matter.  It seems unlikely that the user
> will remember what layer was active on that view, but not be able to
> remember that it was deleted.
>
> As long as the rule for selecting the new active layer is consistent, I am
> not too worried about which one it is.  Possible rules for the case that
> the active layer gets deleted include:
> 1) Previous layer becomes active, unless deleted layer was the first, in
> which case the next layer becomes active
> 2) Next layer becomes active, unless deleted layer was the last, in which
> case the previous becomes active
> 3) Either of the above rules, but restricted to visible layers in that
> view.  Select last layer, if no visible layers remain.
>
> The problem of having an invisible layer as the active one is deeper than
> simple deletion of layers.  I would suggest either using a different colour
> for the active layer in the layer menu, if the active layer is invisible,
> or displaying a warning in the status line.
>
> Of course would we could do is enable "delete" in the side menu for all
>> layers, and then show an error message if it is active in some view, to
>> make it clearer to the user what is happening.
>>
>
> I am not a big fan of pop-up warnings.  No other program I know of pops up
> anything for simple warnings that show up in normal use of the program.
>  While it does ease the learning curve, most advanced users will get
> annoyed by it.  This also holds true for undo/redo; I don't need a pop-up,
> simply because I reached the end of the undo/redo stack.  A simple message
> in the status line would suffice, like most other programs do for undo/redo.
>
> Best,
> Troels
>
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